


H 



U.S. ?* 



&-k^r3t 




V. VOjJo-^.^-^ \ 



The Bases 



of 



Lasting Peace 

As Voiced By 

President Wilson 



I. America's Purpose: International Justice and World 
Peace— at New York, 27 September, 1918. 

II. The 14 Points of 8 January, 1918. 

III. The Four Cardinal Principles of 11 February, 1918. 

IV. Force to the Utmost— at Baltimore, 6 April, 1918. 
V. The Four War Aims— Mt. Vernon, 4 July, 1918. 



THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB 

OF CHICAGO 

1918 



lfn= 



Resolutions Anent President Wilson's New York 

Address of 27 September, 1918, Adopted by 

the War Committee of the Union League 

Club of Chicago, October 3, 1918. 



r^EALIZlNG the scope and implications of President Wilson's 
r^ statement of the war policies of the United States in his 
* ^ New York address of 27 September, 1918, and that no such 
szvc.cping and searching declaration of purpose in regard to the 
relations of nations to one another has ever before been made by 
the responsible head of a powerful nation in a time of world crisis 
and readjustment; 

Recalling that many of the wars that have devastated Europe 
in the past have had their roots in unjust conditions created or 
acquiesced in by treaties of peace that ignored the rights of peoples; 

Bearing in mind that this shocking war, that has finally involved 
the United States, has its causes in deep-seated injustice imbedded 
in existing European conditions and in the purpose of the Central 
Powers to perpetrate yet further injustice at the expense of neigh- 
boring nations assumed to be helpless; 

Seeing clearly that war can no longer be easily localised in a 
world of closely knit international relations and that, only through 
the establishment of substantial justice bet-ween the peoples of the 
world, can we in the United States hope, henceforth, to find peace 
for ourselves; 

And believing that the principles, so nobly conceived and so 
clearly set forth by the President, will, if put into effect by our Allies 
and ourselves, go far toivard lifting frqm the world the nightmare of 
war and the social and economic burdens that it entails and will 
set free men's hands and minds and spirits for the nobler tasks oj 
peace; 

We, the War Committee of the Union League Club of Chicago, 
hereby record our whole-hearted concurrence in the President's 
declaration of principles, and we pledge our best endeavors to the 
end that, so far as lies in the will and act of the United States, peace, 
zvhen attained, shall not once more involve the bartering away of 
the rights of peoples in the interest of dynasties or of poiuerful 
states or groups of states, but shall square with the President's 
solemn declaration. 

GHft 
..Publisher 

"'UN 29 192Q 



.v/tfj 

America's Purpose 

The Establishment of Justice Between the Nations- 
New York Address of 27 September, 1918. 



MY Fellow-Citizens : I am not here to promote the loan. 
That will be done — ably and enthusiastically done — 
by the hundreds of thousands of loyal and tireless 
men and women who have undertaken to present it to you 
and to our fellow-citizens throughout the country; and I 
have not the least doubt of their complete success; for I 
know their spirit and the spirit of the country. My confi- 
dence is confirmed, too, by the thoughtful and experienced 
co-operation of the bankers here and everywhere, who are 
lending their invaluable aid and guidance. 

I have come, rather, to seek an opportunity to present 
to you some thoughts which I trust will serve to give you, 
in perhaps fuller measure than before, a vivid sense of the 
great issues involved, in order that you may appreciate and 
accept with added enthusiasm the grave significance of the 
duty of supporting the government by your men and your 
means to the utmost point of sacrifice and self-denial. No 
man or woman who has really taken in what this war means 
can hesitate to give to the very limit of what they have ; and 
it is my mission here tonight to try to make it clear once 
more what the war really means. You will need no other 
stimulation or reminder of your duty. 

At every turn of the war we gain a fresh consciousness 
of what we mean to accomplish by it. When our hope and 
expectation are most excited we think more definitely than 
before of the issues that hang upon it and of the purposes 
which must be realized by means of it. For it has positive 
and well-defined purposes which we did not determine and 
which we cannot alter. No statesman or assembly created 
them; no statesman or assembly can alter them. They have 
arisen out of the very nature and circumstances of the war. 
The most that statesmen or assemblies can do is to carry 
them out or be false to them. They were perhaps not clear 
at the outset; but they are clear now. The war has lasted 
more than four years and the whole world has been drawn 
into it. 



Mankind's Common Will Rules. 

The common will of mankind has been substituted for 
the particular purpose of individual states. Individual 
statesmen may have started the conflict, but neither they nor 
their opponents can stop it as they please. It has become a 
peoples' war, and peoples of all sorts and races, of every 
degree of power and variety of fortune, are involved in its 
sweeping processes of change and settlement. We came 
into it when its character had become fully defined and it 
was plain that no nation could stand apart or be indifferent 
to its outcome. Its challenge drove to the heart of every- 
thing we cared for and lived for. The voice of the war had 
become clear and gripped our hearts. Our brothers from 
many lands, as well as our own murdered dead under the 
sea, were calling to us, and we responded, fiercely and of 
course. 

The air was clear about us. We saw things in their full, 
convincing proportions as they were; and we have seen 
them with steady eyes and unchanging comprehension ever 
since. We accepted the issues of the war as facts, not as 
any group of men either here or elsewhere had defined them, 
and we can accept no outcome which does not squarely meet 
and settle them. 

Five Issues of the War. 

Those issues are these: 

Shall the military power of any nation or group 
of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of 
peoples over whom they have no right to rule ex- 
cept the right of force? 

Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak 
nations and make them subject to their purpose and 
interest? 

Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in 
their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and irre- 
sponsible force or by their own will and choice? 

Shall there be a common standard of right and 
privilege for all peoples and nations or shall the 
strong do as they will and the weak suffer without 
redress? 

Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and 
by casual alliance or shall there be a common con- 
cert to oblige the observance of common rights? 



No man, no group of men, chose these to be the issues 
of the struggle. They are the issues of it; and they 
must be settled — by no arrangement or compromise or ad- 
justment of interests, but definitely and once for all and 
with a full and unequivocal acceptance of the principle that 
the interest of the weakest is as sacred as the interest of 
the strongest. 

What Permanent Peace Means. 

This is what we mean when we speak of a permanent 
peace, if we speak sincerely, intelligently, and with a real 
knowledge and comprehension of the matter we deal with. 

We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained 
by any kind of bargain or compromise with the governments 
of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them 
already and have seen them deal with other governments 
that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk and 
Bucharest. They have convinced us that they are without 
honor and do not intend justice. They observe no cove- 
nants, accept no principle but force and their own interest. 
We cannot "come to terms" with them. They have made 
it impossible. The German people must by this time be 
fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who 
forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts 
or speak the same language of agreement. 

It is of capital importance that we should also be ex- 
plicitly agreed that no peace shall be obtained by any kind 
of compromise or abatement -of the principles we have 
avowed as the principles for which we are fighting. There 
should exist no doubt about that. I am, therefore, going to 
take the liberty of speaking with the utmost frankness about 
the practical implications that are involved in it. 

If it be indeed and in truth the common object of the 
governments associated against Germany and of the nations 
whom they govern, as I believe it to be, to achieve by the 
coming settlements a secure and lasting peace, it will be 
necessary that all who sit down at the peace table shall come 
ready and willing to pay the price, the only price, that will 
procure it; and ready and willing, also, to create in some 
virile fashion the only instrumentality by which it can be 
made certain that the agreements of the peace will be 
honored and fulfilled. 



Impartial Justice Must Be Done. 

That price is impartial justice in every item of the set- 
tlement, no matter whose interest in crossed; and not only 
impartial justice, but also the satisfaction of the several 
peoples whose fortunes are dealt with. That indispensable 
instrumentality is a League of Nations formed under cove- 
nants that will be efficacious. Without such an instru- 
mentality, by which the peace of the world can be guaran- 
teed, peace will rest in part upon the word of outlaws, and 
only upon that word. For Germany will have to redeem her 
character, not by what happens at the peace table, but by 
what follows. 

And, as I see it, the constitution of that League of 
Nations and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, 
is in a sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement 
itself. It cannot be formed now. If formed now, it would 
be merely a new alliance confined to the nations associated 
against a common enemy. It is not likely that it could be 
formed after the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee 
the peace; and the peace cannot be guaranteed as an after- 
thought. The reason, to speak in plain terms again, why it 
must be guaranteed is that there will be parties to the peace 
whose promises have proved untrustworthy, and means 
must be found in connection with the peace settlement itself 
lo remove that source of insecurity. It would be folly to 
leave the guarantee to the subsequent voluntary action of 
the governments we have seen destroy Russia and deceive 
Rumania. 

Five Particulars of Settlement. 

But these general terms do not disclose the whole mat- 
ter. Some details are needed to make them sound less like a 
thesis and more like a practical program. These, then, are 
some of the particulars, and I state them with the greater 
confidence because I can state them authoritatively as repre- 
senting this government's interpretation of its own duty 
with regard to peace : 

First, the impartial justice meted out must in- 
volve no discrimination between those to whom we 
wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish 
to be just. It must be a justice that plays no 
favorites and knows no standard but the equal 
righls of the several peoples concerned; 



Second, no special or separate interest of any 
single nation or any group of nations can be made 
the basis of any part of the settlement which is 
not consistent with the common interest of all; 

Third, there can be no leagues or alliances or 
special covenants and understandings within the 
general and common family of the League of 
Nations ; 

Fourth, and more specifically, there can be no 
special, selfish economic combinations within the 
league and no employment of any form of economic 
boycott or exclusion except as the power of eco- 
nomic penalty by exclusion from the markets of 
the world may be vested in the League of Nations 
itself as a means of discipline and control; 

Fifth, all international agreements and treaties 
of every kind must be made known in their en- 
tirety to the rest of the world. 

Must Exclude Special Alliances. 

Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities 
have been the prolific source in the modern world of the 
plans and passions that produce war. It would be an in- 
sincere as well as an insecure peace that did not exclude 
them in definite and binding terms. 

The confidence with which I venture to speak for our 
people in these matters does not spring from our traditions 
merely and the well-known principles of international action 
which we have always professed and followed. In the same 
sentence in which I say that the United States will enter 
into no special arrangements or understandings with par- 
ticular nations, let me say also that the United States is pre- 
pared to assume its full share of responsibility for the main- 
tenance of the common covenants and understandings upon 
which peace must henceforth rest. We still read Washing- 
ton's immortal warning against "entangling alliances" with 
full comprehension and an answering purpose. But only 
special and limited alliances entangle; and we recognize 
and accept the duty of a new day in which we are permitted 
to hope for a general alliance which will avoid entangle- 
ments and clear the maintenance of common rights. 

I have made this analysis of the international situation 
which the war has created, not, of course, because I doubted 



whether the leaders of the great nations and peoples with 
whom we are associated were of the same mind and enter- 
tained a like purpose, but because the air every now and again 
gets darkened by mists and groundless doubtings and mis- 
chievous perversions of counsel and it is necessary once 
and again to sweep all the irresponsible talk about peace in- 
trigues and weakening morale and doubtful purpose on the 
part of those in authority utterly, and if need be uncere- 
moniously, aside and say things in the plainest words that 
can be found, even when it is only to say over again what 
has been said before, quite as plainly if in less unvarnished 
terms. 

Responds to the Issues of War. 

As I have said, neither I nor any other man in govern- 
mental authority created or gave form to the issues of this 
war. I have simply responded to them with such vision 
as I could command. But I have responded gladly and with 
a resolution that has grown warmer and more confident as 
the issues have grown clearer and clearer. It is now plain 
that they are issues which no man can pervert unless it be 
willfully. I am bound to fight for them, and happy to fight 
for them as time and circumstance have revealed them to 
me as to all the world. Our enthusiasm for them grows 
more and more irresistible as they stand out in more and 
more vivid and unmistakable outline. 

And the forces that fight for them draw into closer and 
closer array, organize their millions into more and more un- 
conquerable might, as they become more and more distinct 
to the thought and purpose of the peoples engaged. It is the 
peculiarity of this great war that while statesmen have 
seemed to cast about for definitions of their purpose and 
have sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their point 
of view, the thought of the mass of men, whom statesmen 
are supposed to instruct and lead, has grown more and more 
unclouded, more and more certain of what it is that they 
are fighting for. National purposes have fallen more and 
more into the background and the common purpose of en- 
lightened mankind has taken their place. The counsels of 
plain men have become on all hands more simple and 
straightforward and more unified than the counsels of 
sophisticated men of affairs, who still- retain the impression 
that they are playing a game of power and playing for high 



stakes. That is why I have said that this is a peoples' war, 
not a statesmen's. Statesmen must follow the clarified com- 
mon thought or be broken. 

Glad to State War Aims. 

I take that to be the significance of the fact that as- 
semblies and associations of many kinds made up of plain 
workaday people have demanded, almost every time they 
came together, and are still demanding, that the leaders of 
their governments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly 
what it is, that they are seeking in this war, and what they 
think the items of the final settlement should be. They are 
not yet satisfied with what they have been told. They still 
seem to fear that they are getting what they ask for only in 
statesmen's terms — only in the terms of territorial arrange- 
ments and divisions of power, and not in terms of broad- 
visioned justice and mercy and peace and the satisfaction 
of those deep-seated longings of oppressed and distracted 
men and women and enslaved peoples that seem to them the 
only things worth fighting a war for that engulfs the world. 
Perhaps statesmen have not always recognized this changed 
aspect of the whole world of policy and action. Perhaps they 
have not always spoken in direct reply to the questions asked 
because they did not know how searching those questions 
were and what sort of answers they demanded. 

But I, for one, am glad to attempt the answer again and 
again, 'in the hope that I may make it clearer and clearer 
that my one thought is to satisfy those who struggle in the 
ranks and are, perhaps above all others, entitled to a reply 
whose meaning no one can have any excuse for misunder- 
standing, if he understands the language in which it is 
spoken or can get someone to translate it correctly into his 
own. And I believe that the leaders of the governments 
with which we are associated will speak, as they have occa- 
sion, as plainly as I have tried to speak. I hope that they 
will feel free to say whether they think that I am in any 
degree mistaken in my interpretation of the issues involved 
or in my purpose with regard to the means by which a satis- 
factory settlement of those issues may be obtained. Unity 
of purpose and of counsel are as imperatively necessary in 
this war as was unity of command in the battlefield; and 
with perfect unity of purpose and counsel will come assur- 
ance of complete victory. It can be had in no other way. 



"Peace drives" can be effectively neutralized and silenced 
only by showing that every victory of the nations associated 
against Germany brings the nations nearer the sort of peace 
which will bring security and reassurance to all peoples and 
make the recurrence of another such struggle of pitiless 
force and bloodshed forever impossible, and that nothing else 
can. Germany is constantly intimating the "terms" she will 
accept; and always finds that the world does not want terms. 
It wishes the final triumph of justice and fair dealing. 



10 



The 14 Points 



(From the Message to Congress of S January, 191S.) 

I Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after 
• which there shall he no private international 
understandings of any kind, but diplonlacy shall 
proceed always frankly and in the public view. 

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the 
seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and 
in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or 
in part by international action for the enforcement 
of international covenants. 

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all 
economic barriers and the establishment of an 
equality of trade conditions among all the nations 
consenting to the peace and associating themselves 
for its maintenance. 

IV. Adequate guaranties given and taken that 
national armaments will be reduced to the lowest 
point consisting with domestic safety. 

V. A free, open-minded and absolutely impar- 
tial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a 
strict observance of the principle that in determining 
all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the 
populations concerned must have equal weight with 
the equitable claims of the government whose title 
is to be determined. 

Evacuation of Russia Necessary. 

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and 
such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia 
as will secure the best and freest co-operation of 
the other nations of the world in obtaining for her 
an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for 
the independent determination of her own political 
development and national policy and assure her of a 
sincere welcome into the society of free nations un- 
der institutions of her own choosing; and, more 
than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that 
she may need and may herself desire. The treat- 
ment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the 

1 11 



months to come will be the acid test of their good 
will, of their comprehension of her needs as dis- 
tinguished from their own interests, and of their 
intelligent and unselfish sympathy. 

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must 
be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to 
limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common 
with all other free nations. No other single act will 
serve as this will serve to restore confidence among 
the nations in the laws which they have themselves 
set and determined for the government of their re- 
lations with one another. Without this healing act 
the whole structure and validity of international 
law is forever impaired. 

VIII. All French territory should be freed and 
the invaded portions restored and the wrong done 
to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace- 
Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world 
for nearly fifty years, should be righted in order that 
peace may once more be made secure in the interest 
of all. 

IX. A readjustment of the fontiers of Italy 
should be effected along clearly recognizable lines 
of nationality. 

Must Free Oppressed Nationalities. 

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose 
place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded 
and assured, should be accorded the freest oppor- 
tunity of autonomous development.* 

XI. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should 
be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia 
accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the 
relations of the several Balkan states to one another 
determined by friendly counsel along historically 
established lines of allegiance and nationality; and 
international guaranties of the political and eco- 
nomic independence and territorial integrity of the 
several Balkan states should be entered into. 



♦The tenth point was superseded by a demand for actual freedom and 
not mere autonomy for the oppressed nationalities of Austria-Hungary in the 
President's reply of 19 October, 1918, to the Austrian request for an armistice. 
This .said: "The President is, therefore, no longer at liberty to accept mere 
autonomy for these peoples as a basis of peace." 

12 



XII. The Turkish portions of the present Otto- 
man Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, 
but the other nationalities which are now under 
Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted secur- 
ity of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity 
of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles 
should be permanently opened as a free passage to 
the ships and commerce of all nations under inter- 
national guaranties. 

XIII. An independent Polish state should be 
erected which should include the territories inhab- 
ited by indisputably Polish populations, which 
should be assured a free and secure access to the sea 
and whose political and economic independence and 
territorial integrity should be guaranteed by inter- 
national covenant. 

XIV. A general association of nations must be 
formed under specific covenants for the purpose of 
affording mutual guaranties of political independ- 
ence and territorial integrity to great and small 
states alike. 



The Four Cardinal Principles 



i 



(From the Message to Congress of 11 February, 1918.) 

That each part of the final settlement must be 
• based upon the essential justice of that particu- 
lar cause and upon such adjustments as are most 
likely to bring a peace that will be permanent. 

II. That peoples and provinces are not to be 
bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if 
they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even 
the great game, now forever discredited, of the bal- 
ance of power; but that, 

III. Every territorial settlement involved in 
this war must be made in the interest and for the 
benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a 
part of any mere adjustment or compromise of 
claims among rival states; and, 

IV. That all well defined national aspirations 
shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be 

13 



accorded them without introducing new or perpetu- 
ating old elements of discord and antagonism that 
would be likely in time to break the peace of 
Europe and consequently of the world. 



Force to the Utmost 



(From llie reply to Von Hertling and Count Czernin at 
Baltimore, 6 April, 1918.) 

There is, therefore, but one response possible 
from us — force; force to the utmost, force without 
stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force 
which shall make right the law of the world and 
cast every selfish dominion down in the dust, 



The Particulars of Justice 

(From the Mt. Vernon Speech of k July, 1918.) 

IThe destruction of every arbitrary power any- 
• where that can separately, secretly, and of its 
single choice disturb the peace of the world ; or, if 
it cannot be presently destroyed, at the least its re- 
duction to virtual impotence. 

II. The settlement of every question, whether 
of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrange- 
ment, or of political relationship, upon the basis of 
the free acceptance of that settlement by the people 
immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of 
the material interest or advantage of any other na- 
tion or peopie which may desire a different settle- 
ment for the sake of its own exterior influence or 
mastery. 

III. The consent of all nations to be governed 
in their conduct towards each other by the same 
principles of honor and of respect for the common 
law of civilized society that govern the individual 
citizens of all modern states in their relations with 
one another; to the end that all promises and cove- 
nants may be sacredly observed, no private plots or 

14 



conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought 
with impunity, and a mutual trust established upon 
the handsome foundation of a mutual respect foe 
right. 

IV. The establishment of an organization of 
peace which shall make it certain that the combined 
power of free nations will check every invasion of 
right and serve to make peace and justice the more 
secure by affording a definite tribunal of opinion to 
which all must submit and by which every interna- 
tional readjustment that cannot be amicably agreed 
upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be 
sanctioned. 



Copies may he obtained of the War Committee of the Union League Club 
of Chicago, at the following prices, delivery prepaid : 

Single copies 5 cents 

One hundred copies $ 2.00 

One thousand copies . 10.00 



20 



15 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



Pamphlets on Pressing . . 9?!> 953 313 3 i 

D_:_. I 1 



Printed by 



Printed by 

The War Committee of the Union League Club 
of Chicacro 



Three pamphlets dealing with the 
business situation in war time 

UNUSUAL BUSINESS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL 

By Harold G. Moulton 

A pamphlet dealing with the necessity of putting war work ahead of private 
work. 15 pages. 

YOUR BUSINESS AND WAR BUSINESS 

By Harold G. Moulton 

A pamphlet telling manufacturers how they may adjust their business to 
the needs of the nation at war. 23 pages. 

THE DUTY OF THE CONSUMER IN WAR TIME 

By Harold G. Moulton 

In which the duty of everyone to economize and forego luxuries in order 
that the Government may not lack for labor and supplies, is forcefully 
pointed out. 16 pages. 

These business pamphlets may be had singly or in quantities at the follow- 
ing prices: Single copy, 5c; 100 copies, $2.00; 1000 copies, $10.00. 



Two pamphlets dealing with vital war questions 
WHY WE FIGHT By Clarence L. Speed 

In which the reasons which forced America into the war are pointed out. 
28 pages. Single copy, 5c; 100 copies, $2.00; 1000 copies, $10.00. 

OUR PERIL ON THE EASTERN FRONT 

By Clarence L. Speed 

Showing the danger to America and the world which would result from a 
premature peace, leaving conquests in the East in German hands. 22 pages, 
with nationality map of Middle Europe. Single copy, 5c; 100 copies, $2.00; 
1000 copies, $15.00. 



Leaflets for quantity distribu- 
tion in factories and elsewhere 

OUR PERIL ON THE EASTERN FRONT 

By Clarence L. Speed 

A study of the Eastern situation in shorter form. 

THEIR JOB AND OURS By Clarence L. Speed 

Showing the necessity of working at home like our soldiers in France fight. 



